I always had the impression that any given Brexit outcome was coded right on the beginning of the save, therefore you could see it by holidaying into the future and then go back to actually start playing.
If that's not the case, well, props for realism, tho I admit I was one of the persons who tried to see the outcome before actually playing (and never got it different, certainly a coincidence).

The monthly fee has to be calculated also on a monthly basis (which you can check in contract info) because of the percentage of game time (many loans have different percentages if the player plays or not, I for once do that with my youngsters) so if you buy the player immediately after loaning him, you won't pay anymore fees.

There are some small tricks to make the time go faster, like starting unenployed, reducing the detail to a minimum, disable the auto-save and ofcourse having less leagues loaded, since they can be add again later. In a 10+ year old laptop I was able to fast forward 3 years (to see what Brexit I would get at that time) while I was watching an House MD episode (bit less than 45 minutes).

But if I understand correctly you'd need to go through every team (or at least every big team) right? My point is, IRL, you don't need to search for Liverpool squad to know that Salah, Mané and Firmino (among others) are great players. As a football fan, and even more as a football manager, you should be able to know, at any given point of time, who are the best players and the rising stars, something you know when you start an FM save but you don't know anymore when the FM world is populated with regens.
That's why I'm against using Genie Scout but, in a save with 10, 15 or 20 years, I can acknowledge there is a case for start using it, unless FM improves something related to us being more "close" to whoever are the trending players (and more relevant to our career) at any given year.
But that's a different type of discussion ofcourse

Same, Genie Scout is really pushing it, even for more tolerant people.
Tho I understand that after 10 / 15 / 20 years in the save we have a problem of not knowing well the player population ingame, a suggestion I already wrote here on the boards for future versions.
IRL, and about the actual players, we are "bombarded" with news about Messi, Mbappe or Ronaldo, inside FM that doesn't happen with the regens that are now the best in the world, the rising stars from each league and so on. So up to a point we don't really know them, as we should.
Still, using an app that gives exact CA and PA blows all the joy (for me).

When I briefly played Man Utd, the "secret" to make Pogba shine was to lead him into shooting position - and make him shoot ofcourse. More often than not the ball finds the net. Won various games because of his goals.
But I haven't built the team around him.
Tip: Leading him to shooting positions is not just the team shape, TIs or PIs, but the set pieces as well.

But the thing is, you don't. You only know who have the biggest potential. But you don't know if they will actually evolve to all that potential, at best you can only estimate given determination, personality, quality of your coaches and training facilities in a certain age, quality and amount of game time in another certain age and so forth. Not to mention long term injuries that can screw it all. A player with high potential may become rubish. Just like IRL.
"Failed wonderkids" is a thing for a reason.

I was reading the last pages of this thread, it baffles me some of the "criticism", more like hate. I don't know if it's cool to say bad things about a popular game (in many areas, from music to cinema, being popular attracts many detractors because and only because of that fact), or some other reason that I'm unaware of.
Vast majority of us love the game, playing it everyday or as much as real life allow us. Last two weeks I was lucky to be able to play it everyday and I'm enjoying it immensely. It has some issues and areas that can have improvement, but so what, absolutely nothing is perfect.
Some people write about the game like it's the most sick, disturbing aspect of their existance. Relax people, if you hate the game don't play it and problem solved. Some feedback, if we can call it that, is unreal.

The accuracy was not the point mate, I didn't even bothered to check the names present because it was beside the point... just the lists themselves. Also high PA is different from a future high CA. Most of the players never reach their potential, both in-game and IRL.

Now let's look at lists like these (real life):
https://www.90min.com/posts/6240719-50-of-the-best-young-players-in-world-football
https://www.goal.com/en/lists/nxgn-2018-the-50-best-teenagers-in-the-world/1uzkmt4w432v813xuj6bgxv164
This is online and accessible by every single person on the planet with an internet connection. Meaning managers, scouts, directors and so on.
What would be the fundamental difference between this wonderkid lists IRL or the wonderkid lists to FM?

@Bothan Spygood point, things like Wyscout made information accessible to basically anyone. Even Football Manager itself is used by real managers. I know that at least André Villas Boas started that way.

Crap... sorry.
Thing I do in FM is... once it starts to feel super easy, I take a new challenge. Be it a new, lower club, or not accessing any community lists / tactics or whatever... I've downloaded tactics as well, and then I learned from them. What works? Why? When? It's very useful, Then you don't need to download tactics anymore.

I second this. Do whatever let you have the most fun and joy with your game. Cheating would apply in a multi-player game, if you have advantages ingame that other players can't access. In a single player game like FM there are no cheating, only different types of players that enjoy different types of playing.
Personally, I started in the easy way, using tools like this. Then I made it harder by removing any advantages I could have, because it was a challenge and therefore more fun to me.
Again, do whatever let you have more fun. Enjoy!